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Friday, November 4, 2016

The False Hype About Statins │ Prevent Parkinson's With a Healthy Gut │ 25% of A-Fib Patients Do Not Need Blood Thinners

I had a better night's sleep than usual of late ─ even if I did get up twice during the night to use the bathroom. I had gotten to bed ahead of 11:30 p.m., and never rose for the day until nearly 8:00 a.m.

I was home alone ─ my youngest step-son Pote must have had another exceptionally early start at work.

I had hoped to finish and publish the edit of an old post I have been working on since last Saturday at one of my hosted websites, but I had to cut it short this morning ─ I wanted to do the four-mile round-trip hike for another two dozen cans of strong (8% alcohol) beer at the government liquor store at 108th Avenue & King George Boulevard here in Whalley.

It was 10:51 a.m. by the time I had set forth.

The day was grey but dry ─ no rain is called for until tomorrow.

I opted to take a few photos as I approached and then passed through Holland Park ─ my inspiration was an attractive young lady ahead of me who I decided to use as my focal point.

My usual route early on involves cutting through A.H.P. Matthew Park ─ you can see the paved walkway near the top edge of the park in this Google map. The walkway veers into a sharp left as soon as it leaves the park at the park's upper right corner.

The walkway becomes a pedestrian haven from traffic, and cuts through various neighbourhoods, sometimes using very brief roads that end in cul-de-sacs. Perhaps one day it will all get paved and become 133 Street.

As it is, though, it is a fairly pleasant shortcut that takes one to 100 Avenue.

The aforementioned lass had taken to the same walkway near its far end, and I took these first two photos just before she had reached 100 Avenue:

We would both be turning right onto 100 Avenue after crossing to its other side ─ Holland Park is just a stone's throw downhill:

If you look closely in the above two photos, you can see someone just ahead of the lass ─ a path just beyond that gateway leads into Holland Park, and all three of us were to take to it.

A homeless person's encampment is also visible just beyond the girl ─ By-Law enforcement agents will soon have the unfortunate moved on.

I had a credit card payment to mail on behalf of my wife Jack, so I cut through Surrey Place (Central City) to mail it at Pearl Photo / Canada Post.

There wasn't anything else remarkable about the trip, although R.C.M.P officers and By-Law enforcement agents were very much in evidence along 135-A Street and City Parkway.

In fact, on that latter street right where 106 Avenue ends at it (as visible on this Google map), I heard one of a pair of bicycle cops tell the occupants of a police cruiser that had come up alongside them that a certain black truck had just picked up a hooker.

The police cruiser then sped off.

Once I was back onto the walkway where I had originally had the attractive young lady strike out ahead of me and inspire my photographs, I saw a squirrel darting along the top of an adjoining wooden fence while struggling with a slice of pizza in its jaws.

If I did not have a dozen cans of beer being toted with each hand, I would have tried to photograph it.

I was back at my front door by 12:20 p.m. The whole trip was about a minute under 1½ hours.

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In clearing away some old E-mails from my Inbox, I came upon one that I received on September 7, 2015 ─ it was advertising a hotel in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

I wish that I could afford to visit the place, and stay a long while ─ enjoying just about everything they have to offer!

The pharmaceutical industry is making a fortune pushing these drugs, and they're rewarding lots of physicians to speak out in their defence.

Maybe one of those physicians is yours?

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Does the claim that 70% of our immune system is within our gut surprise you?

"Asked about their immune system, most people might think of white blood cells, lymph glands or vaccines," said Dr. Natalia Shulzhenko,...assistant professor and physician in the OSU Department of Biomedical Sciences. "They would be surprised that's not where most of the action is. Our intestines contain more immune cells than the entire rest of our body.

"The human gut plays a huge role in immune function," Shulzhenko said. "This is little appreciated by people who think its only role is digestion. The combined number of genes in the microbiota genome is 150 times larger than the person in which they reside. They do help us digest food, but they do a lot more than that."

But obviously far more diseases of an autoimmune sort than just Parkinson's disease could be prevented if our intestinal environment was kept in peak form ─ we have got to enhance those beneficial organisms living within us.

Step 1: Watch your flora. Gut flora, or what some call "good guy bacteria," are major players in keeping your gut working well. There's an ongoing battle between good and bad bacteria in your intestines -- and a course of antibiotics will wipe out both of them, giving new bad guys the opportunity to flourish because the good guys that usually fight them have been killed off.

That's why if you've recently been on antibiotics, urgent action is needed to replenish your good gut flora. And even if you haven't, it's still extremely important to include probiotics in your diet.

Step 2: Feed your flora. That adage "You are what you eat" goes double for beneficial gut bacteria. When you're eating loads of pizza, fast food and meals from the freezer, it does nothing to help your friendly flora thrive. Be sure to add plenty of fiber, veggies and fresh fruit to your diet.

Step 3: Get moving. You don't have to join a gym or enter a race. Simply getting out for a walk several times a day can help enhance your gut immunity in numerous ways. One study even found that people who exercise regularly have a greater variety of beneficial bacteria.

Step 4: Get enough sleep. Staying up night after night past the witching hour is bad enough for your overall health but it's especially not good when it comes to keeping your intestines happy and healthy.

Probiotic foods include not only high quality yogurt, but kefir (a yogurt-type drink), miso soup, tempeh and even sauerkraut.

And probiotic supplements are certainly easy enough to find. Just make sure to get a good brand that offers a wide variety of probiotic strains.

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I have already included information in a recent post about a blood thinner that is being sold as Xarelto, and which was incorrectly promoted heavily as being less dangerous than warfarin.

Xarelto was approved in the States by the FDA based upon research performed by the drug manufacturer using a faulty blood monitoring device called INRatio ─ the device has since been recalled by its manufacturer Alere.

Even so, the infinitely wise FDA somehow deemed that this was a minimal issue insofar as the research was concerned:

If you or someone you love is taking any blood thinner for A-fib, it behooves you to clarify with the prescribing physician as to whether the research done by the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and University of California, San Francisco, may apply to your case, putting you into the 25% of folks with A-fib who ought not to be taking a blood thinner.

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My evening of Android TV Box entertainment and some drinks is fast approaching, so I am going to close down now with this journal entry from 41 years ago when I was 26 years old, and living in a basement housekeeping unit in New Westminster.

I was renting the tiny unit in a house located on Ninth Street at Third Avenue.

On tap for this day was a hike out to visit my mother Irene Dorosh in the Kennedy Heights area of Surrey. The little house no longer exists, but its address was 12106 - 90th Avenue ─ it was my main mailing address.

To hike there from my room would take about 1½ hours of fast walking.

My bedtime the evening prior to this entry was 7:00 p.m.

TUESDAY, November 4, 1975I felt rather fevered last night, and dressed so I could sleep warmly; I arose about 3:45 a.m. feeling stiff-jointed, as if my infection had been the cause.This third day of my infected throat finds it producing less discomfort than yesterday.It never really was technically painful, but gave that clogged, hairy feeling with such intensity that it approached soreness very closely.I still have the feeling of an imminent headache that I noted early yesterday evening.I read David's message; he was censuring me for not taking him in with me so he could remove from the Sutherland Apartments; he requests I visit.I left a note pinned outside honestly and gently giving my reasons for not allowing his move-in.I performed all my exercises.I leave directly for mom's 8:15 a.m.It had been pouring just before I left, so I took no chance and wore a topcoat; but it barely rained at all and I began to perspire; however, my throat grew sore from the air and I felt a bit feverish.My voice is nasal, and I have a slight cough.I ate quite heavily.I learned from the Province that I wasn't a preliminary Western Lottery winner.Around 1:00 p.m. Mark & Cathy came over, as the latter had told mom they might.Mark is trying to distil his wine, with some success.By the time they left I felt quite feverish, regarding with aversion my imminent hike home; the sun was even peeking out.Well, I left, feeling stiff, but soon I was fairly well; in fact, I had an extremely peaceful walk all the way home.My note for David was gone.This morning after getting up, it was actually 14º C!Mom said Phyllis had a car accident, Sunday I believe.I retire at 7:00 p.m.

My old friend Philip David Prince had knocked early the evening before, but I feigned being absent or asleep. I had heard him scribbling a note upon my door, but I apparently was not interested enough to check it out at the time.

There was no way that David could stay with me. My hours were not his hours, and he would have been an enormous interruption in my routine.

I was regularly exercising, but I would never be able to strip down and do any with him present.

Besides, he could be insufferably arrogant.

It was my younger brother Mark and his girlfriend Catherine Jeanette Gunther who came by to visit my mother in the early afternoon.

Phyllis is my older maternal half-sister ─ it was she who had the car accident on the weekend.

From the sound of my health, I was probably only beginning to become ill with the virus. These bad colds take about three days just to strike full stride.